Calcutta, April 30: Today, after the anti-fraud bill was passed in the Bengal Assembly in its two-day special session, a broad grin said it all.
But beneath that lay chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s mild admission that she was shaken and tense since the Saradha default crisis surfaced two weeks ago and names of Trinamul leaders — MPs, MLAs and ministers — got dragged into it.
Minutes after the bill was passed in the House, a visibly happy chief minister expressed her feelings during an informal chat at her chamber in the Assembly.
“I am relieved today. It was a big burden on me. I had been thinking all these days what to do with so many people attacking our party on this issue. Now that the bill has been passed at the House, I feel like taking a dip in the Ganga…. Or at least, I can now go for a brisk walk.”
“Now I will be able to book people involved in such heinous crimes such as money-laundering,’’ the chief minister added.
A dip in the Ganga is usually considered an act to wash off one’s sins.
It was not clear whether Mamata wanted to follow the Hindu ritual for the flak that her party has drawn over its leaders’ alleged proximity to Saradha owner Sudipta Sen.
A Trinamul minister tried to interpret Mamata’s remarks in a different way. “The chief minister wanted to drive home the point that her efforts to frame the anti-fraud bill with alacrity and get it passed by the Assembly in such short time was a stupendous task, which warranted a cool dip in the Ganga,’’ the minister explained.
Her move to be present in the Assembly when the bill was piloted this morning and later to come back to the House when finance minister Amit Mitra was about to give the final reply bore signs of her concern over the bill, said a senior Trinamul MLA.
Mamata’s presence was “unusual”, he said, referring to the chief minister’s record of staying away from the House and not taking questions raised regarding the functioning of her departments.
The chief minister’s concern is in sharp contrast to what some of her senior party colleagues had said since the Saradha default crisis surfaced.
